


the low wind whispers near

by ponderinfrustration



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Major Illness, Memory Issues, Memory Loss, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23910682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: He wakes from a long illness, and there are blanks in his memory he cannot fill. Mostly, he misses Philippe
Relationships: Comte Philippe de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	the low wind whispers near

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bogglocity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bogglocity/gifts).



> Title is a line from 'Adonais' by Percy Shelley

The last you know is the water, rushing in around you.

* * *

It was pneumonia, they said. Pneumonia that left you sick, and weak, and hardly able to breathe. Pneumonia that left you too hot and too cold, that put that crushing pain into your chest, that cast the ghosts that you could see, feel. Pneumonia that wracked your body with chills, with shivers, that made every muscle and bone ache until you felt you would come apart.

Pneumonia that made you dream of drowning.

When you woke you were here, and you don't remember much of before, don't remember much for a very long time and what you do remember is hazy, is singing far away, and his voice in your ear, soft, and gentle.

And you close your eyes to sleep again, and his smile is soft, crinkling the lines at the edges of his eyes.

* * *

He brought you flowers once, you think. Wildflowers. Purple and blue speedwell that he picked in the crags of the rocks, in the grass growing on the margins. And you sat down with your pen and ink and sketched it, these delicate stems and leaves and petals, and pressed the real thing into a book, to keep it safe.

If you had somewhere to go, somewhere to be, you might paint those tendrils onto the white cotton of a mask, for a touch of decoration. To pretend to be something more.

(He has never asked you to be anything more than what you are, and sometimes you think he doesn't really know what you are.)

* * *

Philippe.

You feel the shape of it on your tongue, how it cracks in the middle. Fill-eep. Or is it Ypres, like the battlefield? They called it Wipers when they tried to pronounce it the way it looked but that was because they didn't know the shape of things and how they sound and you've always known it as something instinctive, known it in your blood, but he was the only one who pronounced it right, and he smiled at you in the flickering lamplight, as if it was your own little secret.

Neither he nor you were there very long. The gas. And when people ask you say that's what happened to your face, and they need never know it's not quite the truth. And when people ask, he says it's what happened to his eye, and when that bit is true they never doubt you.

A little bit of a lie, a little bit of truth. And isn't that the way of things?

(How come you remember that so much clearer than the rest?)

* * *

Whatever possessed a man like him—a man like him, what power was it that made him—that led him to—someone like you?

* * *

The notes come back to you, piece by piece. Cadenzas and arpeggios and soft little things, like whispers that you trace on the keys. You feel them in your fingertips before they ever reach your head, the movement of them, the gentleness. And slowly the music weaves around you, growing, and turning, _careful careful,_ and you close your eyes to let it sink into your bones, and feel his breath silk on the shell of your ear, his fingers brushing the side of your neck.

* * *

You’ve done things. Done things unspeakable. Seen things worse than any man could ever dream. But he knows all about it, and that’s never mattered to him.

Never mattered that the hands that held him close had broken necks and pulled triggers and set whole buildings blazing. He just took your hands and kissed them, and when you could hardly breath around the swelling ache in your chest, he reminded you that his hands had done much the same, and you never ceased to love him for that.

How could you ever cease to love him?

* * *

They look at you askance. This girl, her hair like ripe barley, and maybe it's more poetic to say gold but something about barley strikes you as just right. And this boy, her boy, who looks so much like him but isn't him, the face softer, the eyes a little bigger, the jaw not just as firm, everything in him so much _younger_ , so much more innocent. The two of them, how they look at you, and he has been crying but you don't know why, something red in the edges of his eyes, and she looks, sometimes, as if she is about to ask you something, as if she expects you to say something but you don't and disappoint her, but you don't know what it could be, what it might be that causes her, him, them both, to look at you that way, what it is that causes him to cry out at night from the other room, and you hear her shushing him, hear her singing.

(That voice in your dreams, that voice so far away but you remember it, from when you were ill.)

She didn't always sing so beautifully, but you taught her to, you knew she could, and now she does, and that bit you do remember.

* * *

He always loved when you played for him, when you sang for him. His eye was still bandaged, and neither of you were long out of the hospital, the first time, but you remember how he smiled, how his hand brushed yours, and took it. And his lips were gentle on your knuckles, gentle enough that they sent a shiver through you, sharper than any pain.

* * *

He's gone away again, that's why he hasn't been here. A business arrangement, trying to raise money for one thing or another. Probably he's gone to America, and you know well how long it can take to get back from there. They had to hide you in the cargo hold, once, and he wasn't there that time, it was before, but you told him about it after and how he laughed to hear it, and kissed you.

"Such a terrible ordeal you had," and there was mischief in his good eye, as blue as the sky.

* * *

The grandson of a Duke.

You never thought that someone like that could take an interest in you.

(And yes his father had given up the title to marry a Catholic, a French Catholic at that, but he still had the blood of nobility in his veins, that aristocratic way of tilting his head, that precise way of carrying himself, and you don't think you ever saw a man so beautiful.)

(That in another world he would have been a Duke, and never looked twice at you, except, maybe, to hate you.)

(You’ve never told him that that’s what would have happened in another world, never told him because it doesn’t matter, not really. Not when in this world he smiled at you, and took your hand, and knew your face to be a lie and decided he didn’t care.)

* * *

A blank in your memory, just a blank, where it feels like something should be.

You try to grope through it, to fill the space, but pressure throbs painful behind your eyes, makes the room swim, and you have to lie down, and put a pillow over your face to block out all light.

You never used to have headaches, before.

* * *

You try to write him a letter, but your hand shakes, makes the letters illegible, and when she comes to you with your tea and sees the tears of frustration burning in your eyes, she takes your hand in hers, and holds it until you stop trembling.

"I'll write it for you," she says, something vague and far away in her eyes, and it is indiscreet to have a woman compose your love letter to your lover, indiscreet to have anyone do it for you when what you are is—when it is the way it— but you can't do it yourself, and you always had your own code, you and him.

Never could tell who was reading your letters.

She dries the tears from your face, and you draw a shaky breath, and whisper what it was you could not put down on paper.

* * *

It’s terrible pain in your leg when you try to stand without the cane. It was never like that before and you don’t know why it is now. This pain high in your left hip, as if there’s something cracked in there, something broken. Pneumonia doesn’t damage hips, the last that you heard. It never did before, and you had it before. Had it after the gas, and so did he, and through the haze you remember his face so pale in the next bed.

It was never like this.

You never had a cane either, but the first morning you tried to get out of bed after your head cleared, after you found yourself here, it was at your side, waiting.

* * *

He couldn’t work, after the gas. Not with his blinded eye, not with his damaged lungs. But he could man a boat for a little while at a time, and he knew about guns, knew about strategy. And he didn’t have the stamina to fight, the stamina to go on the run like you did, and he had more responsibility than that, with his baby brother and no one else to look after him, but he was always waiting for you, always, ready for when you could get home, if only for a few hours. If only for a night.

His hands on your back, on your arms. His breath on your throat, his kisses. His face, as he lay there afterwards, that smile soft as he tucked back your hair.

And you would have to go again, but he would still be there, waiting.

* * *

Then it happened that you could stay, and when the child was asleep he lay you down, and neither of you spoke but the tears were damp on his face.

Both of your faces.

* * *

Blood in the water, red, so red. The striations soaking through, diluting, and it feels so close, feels as if—

The Amazon. It was the Amazon, it had to be. The piranhas, or one of the giant water snakes and they made you shiver to think about which was why you hated going on the water but you made an exception.

An exception.

But if it was the Amazon, if it was—God, so long ago, why is the memory so clear?

If it was the Amazon, where are all the trees?

* * *

You’ve known this boy since he was a child, a baby. You’ve watched him grow into a man, and you don’t remember it, but you _know_ it. Know the time and its passing.

You’ve known him all his life, but when he looks at you now, it’s as if you’re a stranger.

* * *

You hear them, sometimes, in the other room. The whispering, the slight shifts in voice, indistinguishable words.

Only once do they rise to coherence. Only once do you make them out.

“Do you suppose he—”

“Suppose he knows? Suppose? How can he not, Christine!”

“He’s not well, Raoul! You know what the doctor said.”

“I don’t care what the doctor said.”

“You can’t--”

“I don’t _care,_ Christine. He’s in there and he’s--and Philippe--”

Muttering, whispering. “I don’t--” and “--he can't--” and “--what if--” and “Maybe he doesn’t.”

“Then we have to tell him.”

“It’ll kill him if we do.”

A soft, “...on my conscience...” but you’re past knowing, past having the energy to care, and you close your eyes and will them to stop, will them to be quiet, and let the pounding in your head ease.

* * *

There was a man in Iquitos. Tall, as tall as you. The shadow of a beard. Long, elegant fingers. A weariness in him and yet—And you didn’t trade in names because names could be dangerous, but you knew he was someone, knew he was more than just another man.

And he came to you, night after night. And once you sold him flowers, once he brought you quinine, but mostly you didn’t speak, though he took your photograph, you know he liked taking photographs, and you didn’t like Iquitos, were only there a little while, but you liked him.

You thought he was the most beautiful man, until you knew Philippe.

No one you have ever met has ever come close to Philippe.

* * *

God, but you miss him.

* * *

Booming crack, the ringing in your eyes. Scraps of timber on the water, pain lancing through your head, your chest.

The flames, dark smoke against the sky. Not the Amazon, but where?

* * *

He never liked his scars, but you kissed each one, and told him they were a sign that he was alive.

Your own scars were something you were indifferent to, that hardly seemed to matter. How could they matter, with a face like yours? When you were made up of so much death? How could anything else matter with that? But Philippe traced your scars with the lightest of fingertips, and told you they were beautiful.

* * *

You knew a girl in the theatre. And maybe if he had been a Duke he would have come to an arrangement with her, would have courted her and married her for the sake of the world. But he was not a Duke, and he loved you however right or wrong, and she kissed your cheek and smiled and promised she’d never try to steal him away.

(She came to see you, not long after you woke. And you think she might have visited when you were ill, but you don’t remember, more an impression of a memory, and you were too tired to say anything. And she was so pale and haggard and you almost would have asked if someone had died, if you could find the words, if you had not wanted to upset her. Even her smile was only a shadow, and neither of you said very much at all, but she sat with you, and rested her hand on top of yours, and she was still there when you slipped back to sleep.)

* * *

You’d go outside if you could. But you’re so tired, now. And with the pain in your leg, going farther than the front room is more than you can stand.

To think you used to be a soldier.

To think you fought in two armies, though one of them was hardly an army.

That you hid in mountains, and pulled yourself through bogs, and slept in the heather and under trees.

And now you can hardly make it to the front room.

* * *

You wonder that he hasn’t written you. Wonder that he hasn’t wired, or tried to phone. Maybe he doesn’t know, yet, that you were ill. Maybe he’s gone just a little too far, yet, to have heard. Maybe in the morning the letter will come.

Maybe he’s finally gone to the Amazon. He always said he would like to. And he’ll come home with a collection of butterflies under glass, and stories of the rainforest and the things he’s seen, and you’ll hold him a long time, just hold him.

Best not to worry him, if he doesn’t know. It would only ruin his trip.

A wonder, that you don’t remember his leaving. A part of that blank space in your head.

He’ll laugh when he comes back, and you tell him.

* * *

You spend a pleasant evening, flicking through his old book of Shelley. Half fallen-apart, held together with glue and hope. He always liked Shelley, always liked the Romantics in general, and he wasn’t given to writing poetry for all that he set up awards for the arts, but he loved reading it. Loved being surrounded by books. And he patronised the theatre, but it was the library where he felt the most at home.

They found Shelley on the beach, a week after he died. Broken, beautiful, a comma in the sand. And they knew him by the Keats in his pocket. You remember thinking what a way it was to be known, by the friend who had died first. To have two names follow each other, always linked.

You saw the sculpture, once. The marble. And it reminded you of him, the slender line of the ankles, the elegantly carved calves. Those hips, that torso. Almost as if someone had rendered Philippe in stone, without the warmth of him, without the scars, without the fine spreading of golden hairs at his navel that were so soft beneath your fingertips. As if you could roll him over, and stroke back his hair, and cradle his head, and whisper to him, and he would open his eyes, and smile. You would have reached out and touched it, lain your hand over those finely carved fingers, if you had thought there would be any heat in it. If you had thought it would be like touching him.

Instead you went back to the hotel where you were staying, where you still had your violin, when you had your violin, and you composed a piece for the sculpture, and for him. And if it disturbed anyone else in that line of rooms, you never knew.

* * *

You always knew he’d do the best by his younger brother that he could. He knew enough of war, of fighting, that he never wanted the boy to join the army. That his only brother should fall in love with your student, you never would have guessed, but the day she asked you to walk her up the aisle, and it was all you could do not to cry as you watched Philippe turn around at the altar, and smile at you, even while Raoul stood resolutely looking ahead, that was the happiest day of your life.

* * *

The last thing you remember clearly, properly, was lying with him in the boat, listening to the birds, and you were half-asleep, but you could feel him smiling into your neck.

* * *

There’s something they’re not telling you. Something, but every time you try to ask, the words refuse to come.

You’re not even sure what date it is, any more. August, you think. Or maybe it has moved into September.

Thinking about the date makes you tired. Thinking about much of anything makes you tired.

You can only read for a little while, can only focus on music for the length of a piece or two. And you have not tried to write any more letters.

You find that most of the time it’s easier to sleep. Or to lie very still, and try to.

Like pretending to be dead.

(Every time she finds you like that, Christine lays her hand gentle on your forehead, and calls your name softly. “Erik?” and you blink your eyes open, just to keep her from wondering.)

* * *

You hope he’s enjoying his trip, but you do hope he gets home soon. Missing him is an ache in your heart, and sometimes it’s all you can do to breathe around it.

* * *

You haven’t an appetite to each much, now. A little soup. Some tea. And then you sleep again, and you wake, and the doctor is here, and he shines a light into your eyes, listens to your chest, your stomach, presses his fingers into your wrist, your throat, the crease of your hip, and he frowns, and doesn’t speak, and you’re not sure what to ask him, so you don’t say anything either.

You close your eyes so you don’t have to see him, and hear the creak of the door as he leaves the room.

* * *

You might ask them, where Philippe has gone, but you decide not to.

It will be a nice surprise to hear it from him, when he comes back. And he must have told you before he left, but you don’t want them to know you don’t remember. They might think you were losing your grip.

* * *

You remember mist. You remember birds twittering in the trees. You remember slanting sunlight, and the webbing branches of trees, little purple flowers almost lost in the grass, and the May bush white as if it had just snowed, the blossoms faintly pink, sweet, delicate beneath your fingertips.

(His lips brushing beneath your ear, hand cupping the back of your head...)

You remember him in his dress uniform, an officer, whyever would he have looked twice at you? The straight line of his shoulders, the proud tilt of his head. And every time he dressed, for any sort of function, as long as you ever knew him, you would lie on the bed as watched, as he checked every button of his shirt, and his cufflinks, straightened his tie, his hair curling, just a little, shining gold. He’s always had an eye for finely tailored suits, and watching him dress is like watching an artist at work.

You close your eyes and see him, as clearly as if he was before you now.

* * *

This pressure in your chest. Not pain, just heaviness. Too heavy to move.

* * *

Raoul sits with you a long time, one evening. There’s something tired in him that you can’t place, and if you weren’t so tired yourself you might ask him, but it’s enough to just lie there, enough just to listen to him breathe, and when he’s ready to say something, he will. You just have to give him time.

You catch a tear slipping golden down his cheek, but when next you come back to yourself it’s to the grey light of dawn, and you, think, maybe you must have dreamt it.

(The blankets are tucked carefully around you, and there are fresh flowers on the dresser.)

* * *

The time might be drawing close, you think.

The time for what, you’re not exactly sure.

* * *

In all your dreams he is there, holding your hand, smiling into your skin, whispering words soft in your ear that you can never remember come morning. And sometimes he is Philippe as you first knew him, with two good eyes, at Ypres and before, both of you wearing the uniform of an army that neither of you were sure you believed in. But more often he is Philippe as you last saw him, as you last remember, half-blind, and needing to shave, that blond hair shot through with grey, his angles softened, just a little, those planes of his face still just as smooth beneath your hand. And you cup the back of his head, and kiss him, and he smiles into your mouth.

“I’ll see you soon,” he whispers, a promise, and these words you remember. “I’ll see you soon.”


End file.
